A proposal by the World Happiness Foundation
Las Vegas — City of Happiness
From the Entertainment Capital of the World to the Happiness Capital of the World.
Forty million people come to Las Vegas each year seeking joy. We propose a city where that joy is real, measurable, and shared — by every visitor, every worker, every family.
Free to be · Aware to evolve · Happy to share
Mission: 10 Billion Free, Conscious & Happy by 2050
The ecosystems
Five ecosystems, one city
The World Happiness Foundation works through five ecosystems. A City of Happiness is where all of them meet in one place, at the scale of a whole population.
Cities of Happiness
Las Vegas: the flagship at scale — a whole city organized around measurable well-being.
Schools of Happiness
Well-being as a core subject: teachers trained, students supported, classrooms transformed.
Businesses of Happiness
Employers who treat the flourishing of their people as strategy, not perk.
Hospitals of Happiness
Care systems that heal pain at its roots and protect those who do the healing.
Destinations of Happiness
Places where visitors leave lighter than they arrived — hospitality as human elevation.
The spectrum
From pain to flourishing.
A City of Happiness works across the entire human spectrum. It does not choose between healing and thriving: it heals pain at its roots and, in the same movement, cultivates the conditions in which people flourish.
Heal pain at its roots — name it, measure it, transform it.
Cultivate flourishing — meaning, belonging, health, purpose.
The Las Vegas paradox
Las Vegas produces more moments of joy per day than almost any place on Earth — yet Nevada ranks last in the nation for mental health. Closing that gap is the work.
Global Pain & Trauma Map
The 7 domains of human pain.
The Global Pain & Trauma Map (GPTM) is our instrument for seeing a population as it truly is. Each domain is measured, mapped, and matched with a response.
Physical pain & illness
Chronic pain, sleep debt, and the toll of bodies that work while a city celebrates.
Emotional & psychological pain
Nevada ranks 51st of 51 in overall and youth mental health (Mental Health America, 2025).
Relational pain & loneliness
A 24/7 city of shift work and transience, where schedules can quietly separate people.
Economic & material pain
Cost-of-living pressure on the very workforce that creates the world's joy.
Existential pain & loss of meaning
Abundance of stimulation, scarcity of meaning — the ache that entertainment cannot answer.
Collective & social trauma
A city that knows collective wounds — and answered with Vegas Strong.
Ecological pain
A desert city on the front line of extreme heat and water stress.
The GPTM makes pain visible so it can be transformed — what is measured can be healed.
“Fundamental Peace is not the absence of pain… it is the transmutation of its energy into love and compassion.”
Luis Miguel Gallardo
The Crossmap
From Shadow to Gift to Essence.
Every domain of pain carries an equal capacity for gift. The Crossmap traces that passage — shadow honestly named, gift patiently cultivated, essence lived — and lands each one in a sphere of flourishing.
Wheel of Happiness & Well-Being
The 9 spheres of flourishing.
The Wheel of Happiness and Well-Being is the city strategy framework: nine spheres, each measured, each with an owner, each with a program.
Education
Schools of Happiness across the Clark County School District.
Work
Businesses of Happiness with resorts and hospitality employers.
Health
Mental health first: prevention, access, and care for caregivers.
Community
Neighborhood belonging for seniors, veterans, newcomers, and families.
Environment
Heat, water, shade, and green public space as well-being infrastructure.
Culture
The world's greatest stage telling a new story about what a good life is.
Governance
City and county leadership aligned on well-being as a public outcome.
Economy
From volume to value: prosperity measured by the lives it improves.
Spirituality & inner life
Practices of presence, meaning, and Fundamental Peace, open to all.
Pinecrest, Florida — the 1st City of Happiness in the US — built its city strategy on these 9 dimensions. Las Vegas would be the flagship at scale.
The instrument
Measure the city from day one.
The baseline is not a promise — the instrument already exists. The Ecosystems of Happiness Diagnostic measures a city across 54 KPIs, the 7 domains of the Global Pain & Trauma Map, the 9 spheres of the Wheel of Happiness, the Shadow → Gift → Essence framework, and the Fundamental Peace Index. It is the same instrument behind the Pinecrest and Las Rozas profiles — and it is ready for Las Vegas.
Guided assessment · No data is uploaded — results live in your browser until shared.
Hub architecture
The Las Vegas Well-Being Hub: how it works.
Seven operating layers, one flywheel. The Hub is the permanent civic engine that turns intention into programs, and programs into measured change.
Direction
Governance and city leadership alignment: mandate, sponsors, shared goals.
Design
Programs co-created with local institutions rather than imported ready-made.
Production
Delivery of trainings, rituals, and campaigns at civic scale.
Activity Generation
A living calendar of well-being experiences across the city, all year.
Intelligence
Measurement: Wheel of Happiness + GPTM baseline and tracking — the Observatory.
Relational
Alliances: city, county, resorts, unions, schools, universities, healthcare, faith communities.
Complete System
All layers integrated into one flywheel that compounds year over year.
The 5 pillars
Where the work lands
Five pillars carry the proposal from vision to weekly practice.
Leadership
Training city, civic, and business leaders in well-being leadership — because a city rises at the pace of the people who steward it.
Schools of Happiness
The Clark County School District — one of America's largest — with teacher training in social-emotional well-being. WHF has already trained 60,000+ teachers across the Americas.
Businesses of Happiness
The hospitality workforce first: the ~300,000 people who create happiness for the world deserve to live it — programs built with resorts, employers, and worker organizations.
Community & Belonging
Neighborhoods, seniors, veterans, families — belonging as infrastructure, not as an event.
Observatory
The Las Vegas Happiness Observatory: public dashboard, annual report, academic partnership with UNLV invited.
Why Las Vegas, why now
No city on Earth has more leverage — or more to gain.
The world's stage
~40M annual visitors; the global capital of live experience. Whatever Las Vegas models, the world sees. It is the highest-leverage platform on Earth for a new story of happiness.
The workforce of joy
~300,000 leisure and hospitality workers hold up the world's celebrations. Making Las Vegas a City of Happiness starts by honoring them.
The clearest mandate in America
Nevada ranked 51st in overall and youth mental health (Mental Health America, 2025); roughly 1 in 5 adults lives with mental illness and youth depression is among the nation's highest. No US city has more to gain from a systemic well-being strategy.
Vegas Strong
This city has already shown the world what collective resilience and love look like. That spirit is the foundation.
Reinvention is the tradition
Las Vegas reinvents itself every decade; after 2025's visitation dip, the next era is already being written. From volume to meaning; from entertainment to transformation: “What happens here, changes the world.”
A proven model, ready to scale
Pinecrest, FL: 1st City of Happiness in the US. Las Rozas, Madrid: Europe's flagship Well-Being Hub. 60,000+ teachers trained across the Americas. A global network of Cities of Happiness ready to welcome its flagship.
Cities of Happiness network
No city moves alone.
Cities of Happiness share a framework, a measurement instrument, and their learning. Five cities hold the network today — designated first.
Las Vegas, Nevada
Proposed flagship at scale — a whole metropolitan population organized around well-being.
This cityInvestment framework
Co-designed, not quoted.
The investment model is co-designed with the city and founding partners.
City & Public Partners
- Governance mandate and a named city sponsor
- Access to schools, public health, parks, and civic spaces
- Public data for baseline and annual measurement
- A measured citywide well-being strategy across the 9 spheres
- A public Observatory dashboard and annual report
- Global recognition as the flagship City of Happiness
Founding Corporate Partners
- Workforce access and time for well-being programs
- Founding commitment as Businesses of Happiness charter members
- In-kind venues, hospitality, and communications reach
- Workforce well-being outcomes: retention, engagement, and care
- Charter-member visibility across the city program
- A global platform at World Happiness Fest
Philanthropic & Academic Partners
- Program and research funding
- Research design, evaluation, and student capacity
- Convening power across the community
- Rigorous, publishable data on a citywide well-being intervention
- Named association with a first-of-its-kind civic model
- A seat at the Observatory and the annual report
Roadmap
Three horizons
Ignite
- Leadership alignment across city, county, and founding partners
- Memorandum of Understanding signed
- Baseline measurement with the Wheel of Happiness + GPTM
- First pilot cohort: one school cluster + one resort partner + one neighborhood
Expand
- Schools of Happiness and Businesses of Happiness cohorts at scale
- Hospitality workforce well-being program
- Public launch of the Las Vegas Happiness Observatory
Flourish
- Citywide integration across the 9 spheres
- A flagship annual World Happiness Fest — Las Vegas
- Global recognition as the flagship City of Happiness
Impact simulator
Move the sliders. See the city change.
Set the scale of engagement and watch the reach compound through families and neighborhoods.
Illustrative model based on WHF program averages.
What success looks like
Six outcomes by year three.
A published citywide well-being baseline and annual Happiness Observatory report.
Measurable gains in student and teacher well-being in participating schools.
Workforce well-being improvements reported by partner employers.
Reduced loneliness indicators in activated neighborhoods.
Las Vegas hosting a flagship World Happiness Fest.
Las Vegas recognized globally as the flagship City of Happiness.
Next steps
How it begins
- 1
Exploratory dialogue
A first conversation with city, county, and founding partners.
- 2
Memorandum of Understanding
Shared intent, scope, and sponsors put in writing.
- 3
Baseline study
Wheel of Happiness + GPTM measurement of the city as it is today. Run the diagnostic
- 4
Ignite phase launch
First cohort in the field: one school cluster, one resort, one neighborhood.
Begin the conversation
We would be honored to present this proposal to Las Vegas leadership, resort executives, and founding partners.
Email the FoundationData: Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (2025); Mental Health America, State of Mental Health in America (2025); U.S. Census (Clark County).